NFU Briefs 2006

On October 4, 2006, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) posted a notice on its website ( www.inspection.gc.ca ) that it had begun a 60-day consultation period on its “Proposal to Facilitate the Modernization of the Seed Regulatory Framework.” The CFIA’s Proposals have implications for all Canadians. These Proposals will affect the types of foods Canadians grow and eat and may partially determine whether certain new genetically-modified (GM) crop varieties are cultivated and consumed here. This paper will focus on the many measures contained in the CFIA’s Proposal that will harm farmers—that will increase the power and control of seed companies and thereby increase farmers’ seed costs.

In her life map, this woman captures farmers’ continual efforts to adapt to changing government policy. “This is production dollars and value added dollars, which the government has told us …if you can’t get enough dollars in this then add [something else], thinking that with extra income you don’t get extra expenses. And then, if that isn’t making it for you, go do marketing too! …I [used to] say we had one job that [didn’t] pay. Now we have three that [don’t] pay.”

While women play a critical role in the day-to-day operation of Canadian farms and the Canadian government have committed to achieving gender equality at all levels of decision making, there has been no explicit effort to identify farm women’s policy needs or their vision of an inclusive Canadian agricultural policy. This research project documents critical issues that rural women and girls believe need to be fully integrated into Canadian agricultural policy. In five regional workshops across Canada, during the winter of 2003­ 2004, farm women expressed deep connections with their farms and communities despite overwhelming social and economic pressures. Farm women established that the major stress in their lives and the lives of their families is the farm financial crisis created primarily by current government policy directions and corporatization of agriculture. Women confirmed that if these root causes of the financial crisis were solved, the quality of life in rural communities, and their health and environment would improve.

The Canada Grain Act (CGA), passed in 1912, established the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC). Section 13 of the CGA stipulates that the CGC is obliged, first and foremost, to operate “in the interests of grain producers” in the establishment and maintenance of standards of quality for Canadian grain, and “to regulate grain handling in Canada to ensure a dependable commodity for domestic and export markets.”

The labour and investment of Saskatchewan’s farm families have historically provided the backbone for the provincial economy. This is one of the richest agricultural regions of the country, accounting for a large percentage of the nation’s farmland base, but the wealth produced in rural communities is increasingly being siphoned off, through unequal market relations, to the benefit of the corporate sector.